


Eldest

by Capucine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Aftermath of Torture, Age Reversal, Age Swap, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotions, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Reverse Batgirl AU, Reverse Robin AU, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Damian Wayne is the eldest and first of Bruce Wayne's children, he finds himself challenged by his adoptive siblings--and working with them as a vigilante.</p>
<p>Nothing is easy in their world, and after what happened with Tim, and even the things that have happened with Jason, Damian is somewhat incredulous that Bruce is adopting Dick, a tiny eight year old boy who is nothing but sunshine and puppies.</p>
<p>He isn't sure if it's fair to think that Bruce blackens everything he touches--or if he's just paranoid. But things start getting worse, and fast--he's going to have to make a choice soon enough regarding Dick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dick was a ball of energy, that much was for sure.

Damian was still questioning his father's decision to take him in. Of course, he shouldn't have been surprised—given Tim, then Jason, not to mention Cass...well. He had something of a pattern going on.

Still, Dick seemed like the wrong person to get stuck in this family. He was too innocent and happy, Damian had concluded, the eight year old practically bouncing off the walls—or, to use an example, swinging off the chandelier.

Maybe that was one thing that had made his father want to take him in—his physical abilites. He was agile, flexible, strong for his age, quick, so on and so forth, though not actually trained to fight.

It made him think of Steph—when she'd first started with the Batgirl thing, she'd had very little actual fighting training. Plenty of physical ability, of course, but there was a difference between being strong enough to punch someone and knowing how. 

Steph was a special case, though—Bruce had actually taken her under his wing when he discovered that Tim had formed that attachment to her. He always did seem to worry about Tim, constantly comparing to Damian and wondering what he was doing wrong.

Damian snorted at that thought. The painful truth was, Tim simply wasn't Damian, and there wasn't an awful lot wrong with him until Bruce tried to shoehorn him into being Damian.

He'd think about Tim later, though. Damian's attention turned back to Dick, who was animatedly walking along the railing of the stairs, doing flexible kicks and even, in a moment that made even Damian's heart stutter a little, a backflip. “Dick,” he said, warning him of his approach.

He didn't get to finish the thought. Dick's face, lit up with glee, turned towards him, and soon the rest of him had positively attacked Damian in a hug. “Hi! Did you see me? I'm kinda great at this.”

His accent was unusual. Damian didn't know a lot about Dick's background, only that he was Romani and came from Haley's Circus. He'd traveled the world with his parents—before their demise a good month before.

And Dick had apparently made Damian his semi-parent. That was how Damian would describe it—probably the absolute most important person to Dick, but not really his parent.

“Yes, I saw you,” Damian replied, trying hard to be gentle with the boy. Physically, he could manage that—it wasn't hard to not bruise him or something. But emotionally, not as much. “You executed it well.”

Dick took this as a sign that he was awesome, and beamed up at Damian. “Yeah! Can you do that, Dami?”

Damian couldn't help the slightly affectionate smile on his face—nor the decidedly more affectionate feeling in his chest. “I can. I'll show you.”

And as Dick watched, utterly enamored, he knew this was why they shouldn't have him.

He was too good for them.

–

Tim always moved like a shadow. He was not entirely unpredictable, but Damian would describe him as unstable following the Lazarus pit. Some days, you didn't know he was there—he didn't make a sound, didn't make his presence known.

Other days...he was a volcano.

Like now.

It was a mess in his room, everything smashed. Damian delicately walked in, eyeing the shards and torn bits—and glad it was not a person this time, specifically, Jason. That had been a rather horrific episode.

Even Tim's computer was shattered on the ground.

Damian spotted him facing the wall of his room, forehead pressed against it, and bloody knuckles still hitting the wall despite the obvious pain it was causing him. His eyes were probably shut, and his face probably screwed up in rage and frustration, something he absolutely refused to genuinely talk about.

He debated saying anything—but he also didn't really want Tim to destroy himself. And that was the direction his hands were going.

Very, very carefully, he caught his adoptive brother's wrists, in a hold that Tim could easily break—and that Tim knew he could break. That was important, as much as younger him would have just held Tim down and screamed at him that he was an idiot.

“You can't do that.” That was too blunt, but it was true.

“I can if I want to,” Tim said, rather sullenly. His words may have been fairly normal, but there was an almost burned out anger, rage in his tone, like he wasn't quite done. He didn't move his wrists from Damian's grip, however, and it was moments like that that gave Damian just a tiny bit of hope.

Maybe he was foolish, but he felt vaguely responsible for what happened to Tim. Like he could have helped him if he'd only known, or paid attention. If he'd looked beyond his initial annoyance at being 'replaced' and really gotten to know Tim.

Tim had adored him. 'Had' being the key word.

But sometimes he listened to him now.

“You won't be able to fight if you destroy your hands,” Damian pointed out, “I don't think you'd like that.”

Tim huffed, and shrugged him off, stalking over to the bed. Ignoring the absolute mess he'd made, he hunched there, glaring at Damian and letting the blood ooze off his knuckles and onto the sheets.

That was a sign he was pretty upset—he would normally consider the inconvenience to Alfred.

Damian was slightly at a loss. He wasn't certain how to fix Tim. A younger him would have thrown the problem aside in frustration—but he was better than that. He was going to fix it.

“Let me wrap them up.”

Tim didn't fight when he picked up one hand, and expertly wrapped up the severely split knuckles. He didn't look at him either.

It was how it was. Don't talk about it, because otherwise Tim might enter another meltdown—and Damiam suspected he did talk about these things, his pain, with Alfred. That he sometimes talked to Steph.

But Tim could not—would not, talk to Damian about it. Because the spoken-in-unsound-mind truth was that Tim blamed Damian, to an extent. For the relative isolation. For the impossible to meet expectations. For the desperation. For the sneering, grudging use of the word 'brother,' in the beginning—and the distance even after.

Damian didn't know if it was still the case—but he wasn't someone that Tim could talk to about it.

That didn't mean Damian hadn't raged at Bruce the day he found out about what happened to Tim—barriers cracking, bursting, as he screamed about everything that Bruce had done wrong with Tim that had led to this.

Bruce had punched him. Raged back. Sunken into a depression.

It took a kid, Jason, attempting to steal the Batmobile tires, to help him get his nose above water again.

But Damian was here with Tim now. He would do what he could—what he never did when he should have—as much as was allowed.

Family came first. That was a fundamental truth—and a core part of Damian's being.

–

Jason was cuddling Dick by the time he got back. The boy had been apprehensive of Dick at first, and there was a significant age gap, but as soon as Jason had figured out he wasn't being usurped at all, he'd grown attached.

That was something that Damian thought was good—affection like that. It was all too lacking in his and Tim's upbringing—and would have been in Jason's had it not been for Bruce's redirection in his parenting. He was stiff with Jason at first too—but Tim weighed too heavily on his mind to let it happen again.

He couldn't let his child think they had to prove themselves that way again—and be destroyed by it.

Jason looked over at Damian just as Dick giggled manically at the raspberry he'd just performed on his neck. “Oh. Hey, Damian.”

Jason had an enormous heart, which was great for Dick, since the rest of them...had issues when it came to emotions.

To put it lightly.

Damian could vaguely remember being Dick's age. It was something he'd blotted out, to an extent.

He could be certain he was not the relatively bright-eyed child in front of him—nor even the mournful child who cried at night about his parents, able to express his pain and seek comfort.

Dick was beaming at him, and shouted, “Watch this!” and he'd flipped over Jason's head and off his lap.

Damian was surging forward, horror beating in his throat, before he'd even thought about it, catching Dick before he hit the floor.

Dick looked a bit bemused, and Damian realized he would have landed fine.

“Hey, uh, I'm going to show you again, kay?” Dick said, and promptly freed himself of Damian's grip and climbed back onto Jason's lap.

Jason was clearly pretending to be absolutely thrilled by this, “Yeah, go again! It's probably fucking awesome!” but his green eyes were looking at Damian like he wanted to understand—and sort of did, at the same time.

Damian couldn't, or wouldn't, explain it.

Nothing bad was going to happen to Dick. Nothing, not now. He just watched silently as the child pulled off a perfect flip, and gave a round of applause that he could barely force himself to.

What was going on with him?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Jason head out to do patrol--and things go to hell in a handbasket. Just not with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Different codenames for a lot of them, as a heads up!

Damian was not looking forward to the day that Dick put on a costume. He knew that Bruce had had the sense to retire Robin after Tim, after the way it destroyed him, but Jason had simply taken on a different name: Blue Jay.

Which was ridiculous, but Jason had asked for it and Bruce just could not say no. And it wasn't less ridiculous than Robin, Damian supposed, an attempt at softening his assassin child's sharp edges. And the costume was actually a bit less garish than his original Robin costume, Damian supposed.

If a small twelve year old who you value a lot asks for a ridiculous name, if you have another child who literally got killed by being forced to try to fit a role that wasn't his, Damian supposed one got lenient. Or as lenient as Bruce ever got.

So, Jason, all of fourteen years old, was currently wearing the blue and black shades of his costume. It had gotten less childish as the couple of years had passed, Damian supposed.

Damian could see his arms crossed over his chest, the musculature showing through the tight costume just a bit. The elder brother, who went by Black Bat (probably where Jason got _his_ ridiculous name) seamlessly blended into the night, not even his mouth visible. They were supposed to go on patrol, and Damian had always thought it was a good sign that Bruce dared to entrust him with Jason.

Stephanie came over at that point. She had no costume on, but that was not exactly abnormal. She could still fight, yes--but after the accident, after the destruction of her leg, she generally preferred to remain on the science side of things.

Steph was researcher supreme--she could both kick ass, if she chose, and search any database. Most importantly for them, she was a trained medic, and working on being a med student, to eventually become a doctor. She was close, and Damian wasn't certain how she managed being a _medical student_ and a part of a vigilante team. 

She was a miracle-worker--and he was lucky to have her.

Her prosthetic leg no longer clicked, it being a higher-quality model than it had been before, but he could still hear her coming. She leaned over and pecked the dark black of his mask. "Hey. Don't go being lame out there, okay?"

Damian huffed an almost laugh. "Of course not."

What was unspoken: don't lose anybody--you or him.

Tim had rocked everything--had nearly destroyed Stephanie too. Coming closer after that had been what saved her, and Damian, in all honesty. They'd bonded, which had felt wrong at first, but then they'd reasoned Tim would not want them to suffer alone.

Damian still wasn't certain they'd been right on that conclusion, but he still wrapped his arms around her waist a bit suddenly. She didn't start. "I will be safe, beloved," he murmured into her ear.

"I know," Steph replied, arms wrapping gently around his neck a moment. "Make sure our Jaybird here doesn't lose a boot somewhere in Gotham either."

That brought a snort from Damian, and Jason's protest of,

"That was one time, Steph, you ass!"

"Language, or you will be shipped to Azkaban!" Steph declared, as she let go of Damian and stepped back.

"That's not a real place," Jason grumbled, and he really was past the age where they could play it out as a joke. 

Damian smiled, not that Jason could see it. Just a bit, not much. He patted Jason on the head. He was the big brother, he was supposed to do stuff like that. Jason was about to say something, his black-and-blue cape fluttering a bit, when they heard an excited, squeaky voice.

"Jay! Dami! Stephers!" 

Damian still found it rather humorous that Dick had dubbed Stephanie 'Stephers.' She was shaking her as Dick came racing up, and he was wearing...

A spandex-sort-of-leotard, blue and lacking legs and definitely not very protective. "Can I come? _Please?_ I got a costume, I can be Blue, uh, Sparrow!"

He seemed to remember that Bluebird was taken, and had been taken for some time. Sometimes, Damian was pretty certain that Dick looked up to Harper a lot. And so did Jason, most probably.

She had honestly shown up on the scene before Stephanie--but independently. Outside of Batman despite being influenced. She was not older than Stephanie, they were roughly the same age, but she got into it before her.

She had gotten more into the 'family' around the time Tim was taken. And had been invaluable when he came back.

"Dick..." Stephanie sighed, pushing a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of the way.

"Is there even such a thing as a blue sparrow?" Jason wondered aloud.

"Dick, I know you've learned a lot, but even if you were going out, it would not be in _that_ ," Damian responded, and he pointed back towards the entrance of the cave from the manor. "Go back to bed."

He could see Dick's lower lip tremble. "I don't wanna sleep."

This set Jason and Steph quiet, and maybe Damian should have picked up on it, but he just said, "That's unfortunate, but you need to sleep."

And Dick started crying at the tone, and threw himself at Jason, who held him tightly with a sigh. "It's okay, Dick, Damian's not being mean."

"What?" Damian knew, of course, the instant Steph gave him a look--they could be mildly telepathic at times.

Dick was having nightmares.

And he didn't want to be alone.

Damian sighed. They needed the both of them out on patrol, Tim was not _ever_ an option, Harper was out of town, Stephanie was needed to man the comm, Bruce was gone, and--

"We can call Roy!" Jason said this very brightly. He quite liked Roy. "He's not with Cass, so he must not be busy!"

Steph shrugged. "We can try it."

Roy was kind of...on a break. Not from Cass, who he was currently dating and had been for a while, but recovering. From drug addiction.

But he was hardly dangerous--to Dick, anyway. Mostly, he was depressed, his addiction being to heroin. He was still a decent babysitter, and understood the things that kept traumatized kids up at night--he was one of them, after all.

Damian sighed. "Fine."

Steph made the call, and Roy was over there a good half an hour later in civvies--a hoodie and track pants that did not match very well. But then, he also wore a red costume with red hair in clashing shades--this man was no fashionista.

He looked better than the last time Damian saw him, and he settled up in Dick's room with a book of stories.

That was that. They were out.

\--

Damian had expected a check-in from Cassandra.

As he and Jason finished cuffing criminals to a pole, alerting the police to their location, he heard the telltale sound of a message.

'Nightshadow to Black Bat. Nightshadow to Black bat. Respond.'

Cass had chosen her codename after long deliberation--and a certain amount of patterning off of Damian. She wore a similar-enough costume--something that would entirely hide who she was, dark and hidden--like a shadow in the night.

"Black Bat here. Report." Damian stepped into an alleyway, Jason following not unlike a duckling.

'The big man is MIA. Presumed...' Cass cleared her throat, 'Presumed dead.'

The big man was Batman. Damian's heart gave a stutter, but he responded, "Any body? Are you okay?"

"No body. Probably burned up.' There was a beat, and she added, 'I am alive. And out.'

"Any chance of recovery?" Damian could function in this state. He could freak out later. He needed to stay calm.

"No. Headed to home." Cass's voice was scratchy, pained, even as she kept that trained-assassin tone that he knew from his core. 

"Okay. We will be there. Stay safe." Damian had no doubt that Cass would fill him in at home--that her assessment of the situation was correct, and he cut off his feelings for the moment so they wouldn't overwhelm him, like a valve. He knew how to do that.

Jason was looking at him apprensively. "What is it?"

"We need to go back home. Now."

"What happened? Is everyone okay?" Jason demanded, a note of fear in his tone.

"Someone's dead," Damian said flatly, and he shouldn't have, because Jason recoiled, looking like he would run.

"Who?!"

He couldn't hide it from him, and Damian wasn't thinking with feelings. "Batman. Come on--"

"No! No, he can't--no, that--that--" Jason was quickly reaching hysteria, breath coming in quick gasps.

Damian did not have time for it, in any case. If Batman was dead, and it got out, which it probably would, there was going to be chaos. He threw Jason over his shoulder, and Jason struggled, shouting as Damian swung out of the area.

They went home in the Batmobile, Jason sobbing quietlyn his seatbelt restraints.

Damian would fix it when he got home. Jason was fine physically, and they would stay fine--if Damian did this right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all liked it. I had fun writing it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra makes it back--and Damian has to keep the family from falling apart.

Jason hadn't shut up by the time they got back. Damian could still see the tears escaping his mask, the way he had curled up in his seat. 

Damian knew that now was not the time to have feelings--it was more important to survive, and maybe he should have felt something for his second-youngest brother, but his training easily kicked in--life or death. Feelings were a low priority.

He reached out to grab Jason, and Jason flinched away with a slightly louder sob.

Damian just groaned, and unbuckled Jason's restraints and bodily lifted him out--which prompted Jason to scream, a mix of rage of sorrow.

"Whoa, Damian, come on! Put the kid down!" Harper was here. She _could_ be a voice of reason at times, and Jason escaped Damian's grasp to run to the blue-and-purple haired woman. She immediately wrapped her arms around him, and he buried his face in her chest. 

Her blue eyes met Damian's, a solid, business kind of look in them. "No chance the B-man's alive?"

"We'll know for sure when Cassandra gets here," Damian replied, a bit gruffly. He strode to the large computer, where Stephanie was frantically typing away. 

"All his trackers--you know, to keep track of vital signs--"

"I know, Steph."

"Yeah. Those are all gone, all offline." Stephanie turned to look at him, office type chair seeming to creak just a touch with the weight of her realization. "He probably is legit dead."

Jason sobbed in the background.

Damian sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He kind of wished Jason would be quiet--he needed to focus, figure out where to go from here. He couldn't afford to be reminded that this was his father and he was probably gone forever. "Okay. We wait for Cass to arrive, then go from there."

Stephanie nodded.

"Hey, what do we tell Tim and Dick?" Harper wanted to know, her eyes seeming to say she already had some idea of what to tell Tim, given he was her boyfriend--ish, Damian wasn't certain on that. He tried not to really think much about romantic relationships of others--it wasn't relevant.

But Dick was a whole different story. He was a small child who had gone through trauma recently--and was about to get hit with a similar one.

Damian couldn't deal with that. "Figure something out."

"Come on, don't be cold," Harper responded kind of sharply. Her hands gently stroked Jason's hair, like she was used to comforting this way.

She probably was, if Damian thought about it. She and Cullen had been through a lot as teenagers.

Damian was saved from answering that by Cass arriving. She came in on a batcycle--she had her cape flapping behind her, heavily singed and torn away.

She had already hopped off almost the instant she braked to a stop. Her hair was flying as she pulled off her cowl, a black mess. She smelled of smoke and burned flesh.

Steph had already made it over to her, Damian quick to follow. "Cass!"

"Walk it off," Cass managed, her communication skills always that much harder when hurt or so on. Damian could see a huge, sticky looking portion of her costume, on her thigh--he dropped to his knees next to her to get a look, holding her leg about the knee.

It was a definite burn--the costume seared to her leg, but seemingly cauterized so that there wasn't much blood loss. He could feel her knee trembling under his hands, though her face was decidedly unaffected. "Steph--"

"I got it. I see it," Stephanie responded. "Med bay--now."

'Med bay' was one of her nerd jokes in the beginning--but it stuck. And Damian lifted Cass bridal style easily, and she let him. He'd gotten her in the bed fast, and Steph had a pair of scissors to cut away as much of the costume as possible around that leg. 

"Where else are you hurt?" she asked, "Be honest with me, don't fuck around, understand?"

Cass did have something of a tendency to brush off injuries. She'd nearly gotten herself killed with an infection once. Damian had been that way too--he thought she was slowly growing out of it.

"Broken left pinky, maybe concussion, and bruising," she gestured towards her abdomen. 

Steph cut through the shirt of her costume, leaving Cass in a sports bra--Damian thought Stephanie was being a bit zealous, but then, Bruce had died. Cass could indeed be in danger.

She had a blotch of bruising across her abdomen--but it looked shallow, like it wasn't a deep contusion or anything. Cass watched them with faraway eyes, dark and staring.

She was in shock--but the emotional kind, Damian hoped.

Damian checked her eyes for a concussion while Steph carefully set the pinky--Cass barely flinched. He knew Steph was saving the worst for last--the burn would be painful to treat, no matter how Steph did it.

He heard more voices in the background, as he gave Cass his hand to grip while Steph started on treating the burn. She squeezed tightly, not making a sound.

Roy was there, Dick on his shoulders--it strangely appeared to be a comforting gesture, from the way Dick was hunched close, and the worried look on Roy's face. Dick did like climbing--people and things--and being high up. His blue eyes flashed towards Damian and Cass, widening.

Roy had quickly handed off Dick to Harper on seeing Cass--he was fast when he wanted to be. His eyes were wide with concern, coming up close but not getting in their way, saying, "Cass, what happened?"

He seemed like he was about to get wordy, but Cass was quick to say, "Fine. I'm fine, Roy." She freed her hand from Damian and reached for Roy's--he quickly seized it. "I'll explain," she promised.

And then she gritted her teeth, clearly squeezing Roy's hand for all it was worth.

Damian watched Stephanie work, plans forming in his head. They had to somehow hide that Batman was dead--and none of them were quite a dead ringer for the dark knight. He himself was probably the best bet--if he went missing, it wasn't going to be assumed that chaos could reign. Batman, on the other hand...

Black Bat was intimidating, and someone no criminal in Gotham wanted to face--but he could disappear for now. He had before, after all.

That was about when he heard Tim's voice. "What's going on?"

Tim's knuckles were still wrapped up from yesterday--and that cloudy look wasn't _quite_ there, Damian thought, though he wasn't sure.

He said, before anyone else could, "Batman's dead."

He wasn't sure what he expected from Tim, but it wasn't what Tim said.

"Oh. Tell him to call me when he gets back."

"Tim, that's not funny!" Stephanie said, just finishing up on Cass's burn. She was giving him that look--the one that wasn't a full glare, because she knew that Tim wasn't really all right in general, but she'd mentioned to Damian once that she had to set him straight sometimes.

Harper sighed, letting go of Jason, who had calmed some and had turned to cuddling Dick--who Damian realized was wide-eyed and pale now.

"Did he fall?" Dick wanted to know, as Harper walked over to Tim, gently taking his hands in hers.

"No. He was burned up," Cass replied, and Damian felt a strange urge to protect Dick from the information.

Still, the tiny child seemed to be taking it better than Jason did--he simply buried his face into Jason's chest, and started patting his back. "It's okay, Jay--we'll find you another daddy, okay?"

Jason held him tightly, clearly crying but not speaking.

And it could not occur to Damian that they were orphans now. He was an orphan--his mother was dead already.

So he harrumphed, turning back to Cass. "What happened?"

She reported with the stolid attitude of a person who was used to it. "We went to a factory--the one making the deadly child dolls. Robots."

Damian nodded. He knew of this perversion of children and children's toys.

Cassandra said, a bit more furtively, "We think it may have been the Clown with another--the Dollmaker. A new one."

Tim laughed at that, and Damian turned in queasy annoyance to see Harper cupping his face, talking to him, the mantras that she'd bothered to learn but Damian hadn't. "You're real, this is real, no one's going to hurt you. You are safe here, with me, with your family. Feel my hands? They're real, right?"

Tim was gently grasping Harper's wrists, nodding just a bit. There was still a faraway look in his eyes, that one that set Damian on edge just a bit.

Cassandra continued, "It was going fine--and then we stumbled on a bunch of them. The dolls. At least twenty had bombs--and they blew up. He hid me. Saved me. Not himself. There was a human-shaped scorch mark."

Jason choked out a sob, and Damian could see Dick trying so hard to comfort him. Stephanie moved over to squeeze both boys tightly.

"So, no real doubt that he's deceased?" Damian said, and he could see Roy wince at the tone.

"None that I have," Cass responded.

Damian nodded quietly. He had to figure out what he was going to do to protect his family--they weren't going to be hit with a deluge of crime and mortal attacks just because Batman was gone if he could help it.

No one else would be lost. Not again.

"Damian," Stephanie said, and her eyes also darted over to Harper. Her intent was clear: the adults should talk. Should figure out where to go from here.

Tim was too unstable, despite technically being an adult, and Jason, Dick, Cass...all too young, in Damian's opinion.

"Roy. Please help Tim--we need to talk."

Roy was familiar with Tim, knew how to deal with him pretty well, and nodded, pecking Cass on the forehead and moving over to Tim. 

Harper left him rather reluctantly, but joined them in an alcove.

"What?" she demanded, "What do you think talking alone is going to do?"

Stephanie was frowning. She was obviously in medical mode--able to keep it together because that was her job, her training. "We need to figure out where we go from here."

"Fuck, I say we just split the hell up--"

"No, Bluebird," Damian said harshly, "We're keeping everyone together."

Harper rolled her eyes at him. "If I take Tim, Cullen and I can live with him in a calm environment--somewhere not in goddamn Gotham. Bruce has some extra properties outside, right? Uh, had...But. If you have Tim or me or _someone_ have the ownership transferred, that'll help Tim recover--"

"Oh, what, the years he's had aren't enough?" Damian demanded.

"Uh, three years is hardly enough, for one thing--for another, what the fuck, man? Is his recovery not fitting your goddamn timetable?"

"Hold on, guys," Stephanie said, "Please stay calm. I don't want them to hear us shouting."

Damian was smoldering with anger at Harper. They sometimes butted heads like this. "Well, running away and taking a vacation is hardly a fitting solution to his father being dead."

Harper glared back. "You think this is easy for anyone, Damian? I just want Tim safe--once it sinks in, this is going to rock his world--and you know his world has already been fucking mutilated, kay?"

Damian glared back silently. She was somewhat right--Tim had not only been killed, but his mind had been messed with to the point of insanity. The Joker had essentially put him in a situation where what he considered his greatest strength--his strategic mind--was turned against him. Every move he made that should have been the solution led to more pain, every time he tried to be clever backfired horribly.

The body had been horrific in its tortures--and Damian just wished they'd made it. That Bruce had realized he was gone in time. But no--he was used to Damian's insistence on being independent, and took Tim's disappearance as a sign he was off and about like Damian.

He swallowed. He couldn't focus on that right now. "Everyone's staying. I'm the eldest son--I am keeping my goddamn brothers and sister with me. You can go if you want, Harper--but you're not taking Tim."

It would be a betrayal of Bruce, and even as it looked like Harper wanted to tear him apart, he knew he wouldn't change his mind.

Stephanie broke the tension--or at least, covered it. "Let's work out what we're going to do about Batman's disappearance. That's the most urgent thing right now."

And they continued into conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all liked it! I quite enjoy this story. I feel like Jason would be hit very, very hard by this--and be just a titch more open about expressing it.
> 
> Cause Bruce feels like the first real parent he's ever had.
> 
> And Dick hasn't been around that long, and he's hurt too, but he also wants to comfort.
> 
> And Tim...might be dissociating just a bit. I got that line from a Tumblr post about Dick telling Jason Bruce died, but I kinda wanted to turn the humor on its head. 
> 
> :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian is trying hard to control this tragedy. However, it may be more than he can control.

Jason kept flapping the wing-shaped cape in his costume. He hadn't changed for at least three hours.

However, Damian had more important things to worry about, because if he focused on his siblings and how they were not acting as normal, he would get bogged down in feelings and get them all killed.

Damian was particularly keeping an eye on Tim. With the angry hunch to Harper's shoulders, he suspected she might incite Tim to help in 'freeing' himself, and Harper was certainly an excellent fighter on her own, and Damian wasn't certain he could beat her, but he was fairly sure the team-up of Tim and Harper would be too much if he was going up against them alone.

Cullen was here too. He wasn't a factor except in Damian's favor, however, given that his fighting abilities were laughable at best. He'd done a little martial arts at Harper's insistence, but only really enough to do something like deflect a mugger.

The pale kid was sitting next to Tim, hand on his shoulder, and chatting with him quietly. His hair, which was back in a nice, neat braid compared to Tim's kinda bedraggled look, was the dark color that Harper's would be if she didn't dye it. He had a sweater--he was a college student, getting into some field that Damian could care less about. 

Harper's arms were crossed, leaning against the wall near her brother and Tim.

Damian ignored her for now. Instead, he directed his attention to Steph, who was fretting as she made modifications to a surviving batsuit. 

She looked up at him, and sighed, the handheld sewing machine coming to quiet. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes. Positive. It was going to be me anyway," Damian responded, perhaps a touch curtly. He didn't have time for this, people would be suspicious soon. Perhaps not, but he couldn't take that chance.

He thought he saw hurt in Steph's eyes, but she turned back to sewing. "Well. So long as fate is set in stone."

Dick came over at that point, wrapping around Damian's leg rather like a cat. "Dami, Jay needs juice."

"What? Did he ask for some?" Damian said, willing to engage in this useless discussion with Dick because it was Dick, not because it would help anyone. He wasn't about to yell at a double-orphaned eight year old boy.

"No, he just needs some."

Damian looked down at Dick, brow crinkling. "How would you know that if he didn't ask for it?" Food or water, maybe, but specifically juice...?

He looked over at Jason, who was essentially pacing fitfully and flapping his cape every so often. His face was streaked red, and he kept scrubbing at it. At that moment, he let out a hiccup.

Damian looked back to Dick. "...he needs juice?"

"Yeah. And a cuddly blanket," Dick said, and his gaze was very serious, like they had been neglecting a very important thing.

It occurred to Damian like a lightning bolt--those were definitely the things they gave Dick when his parents had died in their act. And Dick could see that Jason was in distress, or at least concluded he was from the death of his father.

Damian supposed that Jason's distress was apparent, and there was an uncomfortable twang in his chest. He nodded to Dick, and left the conversation with Steph to silently grab a juicebox (a good way to combat minor blood loss) and a 'cuddly blanket', as Dick put it.

He got in Jason's way, nodding to him. "Take off the suit."

Jason glared at him. "No!"

Damian clenched his teeth, but kept control of himself. "Jason. It's time to get out of the costume and lie down. On the medical bed."

Jason hiccuped, somehow angrily. "No, no, it's mine, you can't take it!"

Cullen came over first. "It's okay, Jay," he said gently, resting his hands on his shoulders but not tightly, "No one's going to take being Blue Jay from you."

It occurred to Damian that Cullen might be going into psychology or something. He couldn't remember for sure, because he hadn't really cared.

Jason hiccuped again, voice cracking, as he said, "I don't want to go--I don't want to go! I wanna stay here, fuck you!"

Oh. It hit Damian again--Jason was indeed an orphan, like him, but also a minor orphan. He had to have a guardian, something Jason was surely acutely aware of. The idea that he would go back into the foster care system, after having had this family for a few years now, was probably unbearable.

He decided he could calm that without compromising himself. "Don't worry, you're not going anywhere. We are keeping you."

He was pretty certain that, in Bruce's will, it was drawn up not only for Damian to inherit the company, but for him to have guardianship of Jason and Cass.

Obviously, the implicit assumption was for him to keep Tim and take care of him too.

Suddenly, involuntarily, his stomach knotted. Was such a provision in place for Dick?

Harper was their hacker. She generally preferred more hands-on stuff, but she was certainly one of the top hackers in the area. It had been one of the ways she'd tracked Batman early on, and her skills had grown as the internet and computers became more complex.

She could forge _something_ , Damian was sure.

Jason sniffled loudly, and Damian nodded towards his costume. "I really get to stay?" Jason asked.

"Yes, you do. Now get changed."

It seemed Jason was suspicious, but he did as told, unzipping the costume and stepping out of it, leaving him in compression shorts and a white tank. He seemed to shiver just a little, and Damian draped the blanket over his shoulders.

Fortunately, Jason sat down on the bed--Cass's bed, actually, but there was adequate space, so Damian left it alone. Cass scooted down on the bed, because pain was something that almost never deterred her, and wrapped her arms tightly around Jason.

Damian silently gave him the juicebox, straw already in.

Now, he had to focus on protecting them.

Tim, he would have to be sure to keep contained once the shit hit the fan. If he freaked out, they couldn't risk exposure or some well-meaning idiot getting involved. Tim could kill people, and there was always the concern there that he would, in a fit of psychosis.

He could see said brother watching him, green eyes unreadable, as always. What was there to understand? Tim was not the person he was--barely half. The only thing was to be kind to him, Damian supposed.

Jason would be easy to handle--he was fairly sure about the guardianship, and after that, it was a small matter to keep Jason active as Blue Jay.

Cass would be easy enough too. She would probably be easier than Jason, in all honesty--once she'd healed, she would be back to action quickly, knowing her. The main challenge would be convincing her to let herself heal before heading back out to the action.

Steph...Steph would stay. She was all right.

Harper was an afterthought, mostly a concern--he couldn't let her take Tim. She would try, so he may have to fight her, and he would be prepared for that. He knew weaknesses to take advantage of, so he would be prepared.

Cullen didn't matter, not really.

Roy would stay for Cass, and that would aid her recovery. Another person to tell her to lie down.

And Dick...

His eyes flicked over to the small child, who was apparently amusing himself by turning somersaults. He could see that Roy was keeping a close watch to make certain he didn't hurt himself.

What would he do with Dick? He didn't think Harper was petty enough to risk Dick to be able to take Tim with her, but she was his main way of changing whatever needed to be changed legally. Or, perhaps he could circumvent her and apply to be Dick's guardian legally.

He didn't dwell on the fact that would make a father three times over--before twenty five. 

Yes, he had it figured out--legal approach with Dick, handle the paperwork for Cass and Jason, and then the paperwork for Wayne Corp.

Be Batman.

"It's stitched--try it on," Steph said quietly from behind him, and she was holding up the batsuit. An older one, one that Damian was definitely familiar with. A prickle went up and down his skin, but he took it from her.

He tried it on. It felt like wearing someone else's skin. He swallowed hard, and turned to look at Steph. 

Her eyes were a touch clouded, and she nodded. "Yeah. That fits."

He'd been wondering what to do about Tim. He'd been wondering how to plan for whatever would happen with him.

But he didn't get the chance to plan any longer. Harper's shriek was the warning he got.

"Tim, no!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta da. I feel like I am dying, but I should get better. Yay inconsiderate family members!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit hits the fan when Tim sees Damian wearing the Batman costume. And Damian was never all that well equipped to care for his siblings, even in the best of times.
> 
> And with Batman dead, these are definitely not the best of times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for ableism involving mental illness/disability.

Tim had come at him. 

One moment, he was adjusting his cowl, looking at Stephanie, and then he was hit by one hundred and thirty five pounds of Timothy.

His brother wasn’t especially large or heavy, but a person was still a lot to get hit with unexpectedly, and Damian was a touch ashamed to admit he was knocked down. He hadn’t expected it. He should have.

Tim’s fingers were on his face, nails scratching a little, and Damian had caught his wrists quickly, shouting, “Timothy, get off this instant!”

“You get it off!” Tim shouted back, struggling against him. “Off! Now!”

He was insane, Damian knew that, but that didn’t preclude using force to stop him. The thing with Tim was that he rarely ate, tended to not care for it—so he was significantly lighter and smaller than Damian was. It wasn’t that hard to flip him over and pin him underneath him, arms and legs immobilized in a tight, close hold.

Tim screamed, flailing under him. Despite all his training, he still tended towards panic when held down—Damian would have thought he would have learned by now to quell it, but he hadn’t. His father had never pushed training with Tim after all that happened.

He probably should have.

Tim remembered some, clearly, fighting his hold in ways only a martial artist would think to, rather than a panicking civilian—he had the pressure points on his wrists faster than he should be able to, in Damian’s opinion, given his lack of keeping up his training properly, but the pain was impossible to resist—Damian’s hands lost their grip, and Tim drove an elbow into his neck, sending him jerking back.

He was still on top of him, though, much too heavy for Tim to throw easily, and now he was a bit angry. Why did Tim keep doing these things? How dare he put them through more?

Damian struck viciously into Tim’s back, temporarily stunning him, sending his hands smacking against the ground as the air rushed out of him. He was gasping for breath by the time Damian had him securely pinned, arms pulled too tightly behind his back to be anything but painful. 

“Stay still,” Damian growled next to Tim’s ear.

He barely got to hear Tim start breaking down, his breath too gone to properly sob or scream. A boot connected with the side of his head, a metal capped one, and sent him flying off. It was only the cowl that protected him from serious damage.

Harper’s eyes were glowing with anger, and a word went through Damian’s head—nuclear. Her teeth were bared, and she looked more like the vicious cutthroat she seemed to try to be with the piercings and the hair and the spikes on her costume. “You get the fuck away from him.”

Steph was with Tim, Damian realized with some shock, actively holding him but not trapping him. More like a mother would be depicted. He was talking too slurred to be anything intelligible, eyes darting around, voice a frantic strumming of sound.

“ _He_ attacked _me_ ,” Damian reminded, but it sounded smaller, weaker, in the empty space of the cave. 

Harper’s teeth showed more in a snarl. “Yeah? Goddamn, I guess that makes it okay! You know what he went through, and you know what you’re supposed to—“

Damian could feel his hackles rise. “I’m not doing your idiotic psychological mumbo jumbo, Tim is still in there and he understands—“

“Fuck you! Why the fuck do you have to be like this?” Harper demanded, words spitting like acid.

“He is not a fragile infant,” Damian spat back, “If it were up to you, he’d be allowed to throw tantrums like a child.”

Tim was quiet now, Damian realized. His head was bowed, he wasn’t breathing hard or crying audibly. His silence was perhaps a bit disturbing.

And Steph was looking at him in concern, then to Damian. A look he couldn’t quite decipher, not accusatory but perhaps…upset? He felt like he should know.

Harper growled at him lowly, “You wouldn’t treat Steph like this because she lost a leg.”

And that set Damian’s blood boiling. He didn’t tolerate any aspersions cast on Steph. “Stephanie has persevered and made herself stronger—Timothy is a dangerous lunatic who refuses to move on despite being completely whole. It’s not the same at all!”

And that was when Tim bolted. 

Damian went to grab him, but Cullen said, “I got it.” It was soft, but there was something so viciously accusatory in his tone that it made Damian stop. Harper’s brother, who’d never bothered to learn to fight, went after Tim. It was a terrible idea, and Damian was struck by the paranoia they would take Tim, but Harper was clearly ready to fight him.

And maybe he would have chased, but a tiny boy jumped in between and squeaked out in almost furious tones, “Brothers shouldn’t fight like this! Stop it!”

Anyone else, Damian would have snapped that he hadn’t chosen to fight, that had been Tim, but this was Dick Grayson, tiny ray of sunshine, and so he stopped, mumbling, “I’m not trying to fight.”

“Could have fooled me,” Harper muttered, less vicious than before.

“Stop it!” Dick repeated insistently. “We all lost our dad, so we gotta not hurt each other. Okay?”

“Oh, honey,” Steph murmured, and she came over to Dick. And Damian realized there were tears shining in Dick’s eyes, though he seemed kind of righteously angry. Steph held out her arms for the eight year old, and Dick hugged her tightly.

He still managed to look around the room disapprovingly. “You’re making Jay cry. You’re all very bad siblings.”

And Jay’s head was buried in Cass’s shoulder, Damian realized. He felt unobservant, but it also wasn’t a critical detail. It wouldn’t kill or harm anyone for him not to know it. It wasn’t a threat. 

Cass’s hand stroked Jason’s head, but her eyes were on Damian. She was smarter than most of them, Damian knew, in ways that most people didn’t understand. And she was looking at him like he was one of the people who didn’t understand. Like he was a missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

She hadn’t been here that long, though, so Damian uncomfortably shrugged it off.

“I have to be Batman. We know that much—“

“Don’t change the subject!” Dick snapped, startling Damian. “This is important, because you can’t make him cry like that! We don’t have a dad or a mom, and that means you have to be extra good to everybody cause we’re all hurting!”

Damian was stunned. He really didn’t want to think on this, the topic trying to skirt its way out of his mind. He didn’t have time to cry, whether for himself or with his siblings. He didn’t have time to talk it out or whatever bullshit Harper and Cullen were always pushing.

He had to protect his family. There was no time for this.

“I have to go,” he said bluntly. “Steph, keep an eye.”

“Damian—“

He didn’t let her finish, stalking to the computer. He ignored them, pulling up files and figuring out what he would need to keep them all alive and together.

He could feel Steph’s stare on the back of his head, probably disapproving. She’d understand once he fixed it.

They all would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta da! Only took me almost four months. I am sorry. It just stalled a little. 
> 
> I hope people still like this story. I'd like to finish it. And I feel like I'm back in proper writing mode and all.
> 
> Tim has severe PTSD or CPTSD, aka shell shock. Probably some other issues as well. What Harper is referring to is their methods for talking him down when he is triggered.
> 
> By no means is Tim completely blameless and unable to control himself because he's mentally ill, but it is very hard to deal with. His case is very severe, and he's trying, but it's some rough shit to work through, and he doesn't always succeed.
> 
> Damian doesn't exactly help much, though it's not intentional. He just doesn't understand.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian tries to handle being Batman.
> 
> It doesn't go well, depending on how you judge it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Came up with this chapter while listening to No Light, No Light by Florence + the Machine.
> 
> Not sure it has much to do with it, but eh.

It was crucial to make certain that all their loose ends were covered. It was crucial that the world didn’t know that Batman was truly gone.

For that, Damian needed to make an appearance in the suit that felt like wearing his father’s skin.

He slid a finger under the cowl momentarily, as if he could pull it away and somehow change the breathability (it was breathable, of course it was), but then he straightened. He looked to the others, trying to determine who to take with him.

Jay had no chance of being anything but a liability at this point. Harper wouldn’t go with him if he offered her gold and Timothy to take wherever she wanted. Steph wasn’t active in the field. Cass was injured.

And Dick was definitely not going out there.

For that matter, neither was Roy, despite what he apparently thought.

“Get that off. You look diseased,” Damian said.

Roy shrugged, pulling on the red body armor anyway. He was skinnier than he’d once been, face more sallow, and he replied, “I hate to tell you this, boss-man, but I’m going with you.”

Damian’s teeth clenched. He did not want to deal with this. “Oh? Since when does Batman go accompanied by—by _Speedy?_ ”

“You and I both know I haven’t gone by that name for a long time.”

The way Roy continued to calmly suit up annoyed Damian. Like it didn’t matter what he said, Roy Harper would do what he pleased. And he supposed that wasn’t an inaccurate assessment—Roy had been known to be boneheaded at times.

Damian cleared his throat, murmuring, “Fine. But if you believe I’ll continue to associate with you in costume--”

“They’ll barely see me, but thanks, I love you too.”

Roy knew that always threw Damian off, and now Damian fumed at him so lightly tossing the word around. It settled under his skin in a way he hated.

But soon enough, the dark red costume was on and Roy was ready to go. 

Damian left after making certain Steph was on the comms, though she still had that sad eyed look he refused to acknowledge. She also mentioned everyone was secure to comfort him.

The air was dark, hard to breathe in a way that Gotham’s smoggy air wasn’t always. The cape was heavy, but not distinctly heavier than Damian’s typical costume.

He had always been the one that drove terror into the heart of the darkest criminals. His past deeds were unmentionable, in part because Damian would rather forget what he’d been. Who he’d been when his ten year old self was taken in by his father.

He wasn’t even human, in his own reckoning.

“You look distant. You okay?” Roy said this in a comforting way, looking concerned as he perched on the rooftop with him.

“I am perfectly fine.”

“Then you’re psycho,” Roy said helpfully.

“Excuse me?” Damian demanded, turning to look at Roy. He could feel an angry churning in his chest like dark concrete breaking apart.

“You heard me. You’re feeling this too, and if you need help--”

“You’d know all about needing help,” Damian retorted snidely, and he shot his grappling hook. He wasn’t having this conversation, not now, not with Roy, not ever.

“Goddamnit, you fuckhead,” he could hear Roy cuss, though he followed Damian’s sweeping swing. 

It wasn’t hard to find a place to strike. All Damian had to do was look for a seedy bar in Crime Alley, and find something to overturn, like ants under rocks. There was a small time dealer there, at the bar he chose, and he chose to make an example of him.

It wasn’t to spite Roy, he reminded himself, even as he could feel the archer’s scowl on his back.

As they left the man for the police, Roy had the gall to look at him and demand, “Is this really helping? You just broke a man’s arm for--”

“Drug dealing, which is a crime and funds many criminal ventures and puts fools like you out of use for society, so yes, I am really helping,” Damian snapped back.

Suddenly, Roy was standing in his path. “Fuck it, listen to me! You were vicious, you were cruel, and you’re being cruel right now! If you’re going to be Batman, you need to follow his code--”

“I am. Perhaps I should follow it on you? Get out of my way,” Damian said, a black cloud seeming to crackle in his head. The man he’d just snapped the humerus of, the man whose blood was flecked on his costume, ran through his mind. He’d done the right thing, and Roy was getting in the way.

It felt like lava in his veins when Roy snapped, “Fucking make me, if Batman would do that.”

Damian didn’t miss the way his eyes widened when he swatted him aside. He was bigger than Roy Harper, significantly so, and much stronger. It wasn’t a fair fight.

Roy was wiping slowly dribbling blood from his lip when he looked at Damian. There was something slightly shrunk in about his posture, and he didn’t say anything for a moment from his position on the ground. “...god, Damian...”

“You can go back, or you can leave. Either way, you’re not coming with me,” Damian said imperiously. In his head, he could imagine the flack he would catch when he got back for striking Roy, but now was not the time.

He hoped it would never be the time. He didn’t know what he would do in the course of a few days, when this was handled.

When his father was permanently gone.

And that thought sent him on his way.

He reminded the city of the Batman, made sure they knew he existed still. He couldn’t even count the number of crimes he stopped, the criminals he put away. It sort of blurred together at the point that he dragged himself to the nearest safehouse, the gray streaks of dawn his signal to go out of sight.

He dropped dead asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, to his relief.

–

The flashes of color were annoying, the sounds warping in and out.

He could see Tim, small, still Robin, cape clutched about him as he was sunk down to his knees. _’Please’_ came the plea from him, one he’d heard a million times in the tapes, as he looked up with blacked out eyes that ran black tears down his cheeks.

Damian turned, trying to decide how to help Tim, or if he should run, when the next scream came.

_Jason._

The boy’s head was seized in a giant hand, tilted back, a woman with glasses perched on a large nose as she smiled, teeth big and square and made for consuming children. _’It won’t hurt,’_ she promised Jason, who wasn’t in costume, and her eyes were too blue as she looked at Damian, her intent clear. _’You can’t have him anymore, the papers are gone. He’s mine now.’_

No sound would come from Damian’s throat to protest.

A form hit him, black and shadowy. Cass’s eyes appeared for a moment, hands grasping at him before she sunk through the floor, completely gone as he reached for her. The last touch of her was like silk slipping through his hands, and why hadn’t she been more easy to grab? Why they would they plan this this way?

Rage started to build in Damian’s skull, like he would release fire at all of them.

‘Stop it!’ he tried to scream, but all that came out was red hot, something that burned everything it touched. 

Dick screamed, and he could see him turn red from _him_ , from his heat and anger, just vaporize and disappear, and _he hadn’t seen him there,_ how could he have?! He hadn’t meant to!

And there was his father, looking down on him. _’You killed my children,’_ was what he said, words like weights hitting Damian in purple-dark pain and dragging him down.

_’No, I didn’t!’_ Damian tried to protest, tried to convince something that was unconvincing, impossible. He couldn’t prove it because his father had never been the blackness in their family, it was him, it was _him_ , and now it was spreading towards the others, Steph, Harper, Roy—all of them would be eaten alive, their mouths were opening to scream as it went to tear the flesh off their bones--

–

Damian woke with a scream.

And the realization that he was most certainly not all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this makes sense. It took me a long time to figure out what to update this with, so sorry about that.
> 
> Been going through some intense shit, so that was kinda channeled here.

**Author's Note:**

> Just my take on an age reversal thingamagummy. Hope y'all like how it's going! Merry Christmas (eve)!


End file.
